


Last Train to London

by Tsukiakari_sama



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21588061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsukiakari_sama/pseuds/Tsukiakari_sama
Summary: Tsukiyama, Hide and Hori Chie decided to go to London together. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, doesn't it? Not this time!
Relationships: Tsukiyama Shuu/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	Last Train to London

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Last Train to London](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21561370) by [Tsukiakari_sama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsukiakari_sama/pseuds/Tsukiakari_sama). 



”So, what’s now?!” Raymond stared irritably at the blank screen of the monitor. The notebook abruptly stopped working. A moment of inattention, and it was enough to spill coffee all over the keyboard. Cursing quietly under his breath, he rolled up his shirt cuffs. At first, Raymond tried to clean up the mess himself, but he couldn’t find paper napkins for love nor money.

”Bloody coffee!”

As he lifted his laptop up the dark brown trickle began to drop out of the fan vents. His four-year-old comrade-in-arms, in the endless fight against a deadline and lack of inspiration, died a tragic death. This deplorable sight deprived Raymond of all hopes of a productive workday. With sticky fingers from far too sugary coffee, he reached into his jacket pocket. Samsung Galaxy slipped out of his hand. The vision of the broken smartphone grew clearer in his mind. He could visualise in slow motion how it crashes on the floor. At the last second, he caught the phone one-handed before it hit the ground and sighed with relief.

Raymond quickly inspected his smartphone, reviewing a few numbers stored in his contacts list. One of them was signed with a single letter, the initial M. How fortunate for him that his only friend was competent enough to resurrect his notebook, or at least recover data from the hard disk.

**_The customer you have called is unavailable_** **or has travelled outside the coverage area. Please try your call again later** …

_‘She’s not answering her phone. Nothing new.’_ He hissed softly, well aware of the fact that Mazzy turns off her phone at work. Further attempts to connect with her were pointless. All he could do was send an email to his friend.

For a person who was making a living on writing, Raymond wasn’t in the habit of writing long messages. The almost blank email included a photo of the notebook after a coffee spill and a subject line: “Could you do something about this?”

The message has been sent. Raymond made an unsuccessful attempt to lean on a non-existent back (that’s why he didn’t like bar stools, especially after a few shots). It was a close call, but he managed to avoid the humiliating fall. The writer adjusted his glasses, muttering under his breath:

_Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,_  
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.  
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men  
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

He reached for his Kånken Laptop to hide the evidence of the crime from the rest of TY Seven Dials’ clients.

‘Should I recover data from a hard disk?’ he thought to himself. Most of the materials were stored on the Cloud and the external drives. Every day he was making copies of all the texts - even useless gibberish, the result of repeatedly banging his head on the keyboard. Anyway, he was thinking about the new notebook for a long time. Because of his habit of leaving everything until the last minute, he couldn’t make up his mind what to buy. Now, after flooding the laptop, he had at least sufficient motivation to buy new equipment.

In this case, the unfortunate incident brought additional benefits. It was a good excuse to take a break from work. In fact, he couldn’t write anything worth writing. The _same as yesterday and the days before._ Last week he wasn’t in the right mood for work either.

In a state of complete boredom, he began to browse social media on his Samsung. One glance at the headline was enough to arouse his curiosity. He raised an eyebrow slightly. It was another article about the Dragon War.

He didn't expect any breakthrough news, especially those related to Japan. Until now, most information about this country had been successfully blocked. After reading the first two paragraphs of the text, he was sure of his suspicions. ‘ _Nothing new_.’ It was another worthless article consisting of over-speculation that has been running through the last year. These cheap scribbles were getting his stomach upset and made him vomit. They might as well start copying texts from Reddit. At least they didn't lack imagination.

On 11 April 2018, the world watched in shock and horror the beginning of the armed conflict in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, also known under the catchy name of Dragon War The attack had caused quite a stir among public opinion. Japan was facing its greatest security threat since World War II. Biological weapons had never been used on such a huge scale directly against civilians in recent history. Tens of thousands of Tokyo residents died during an attack of an unidentified biological form, later called the _Dragon_.

So far, it hadn't been explained what the dragon was. In most of the shared photos, the huge kaiju looked as realistic as Godzilla from 1954. Where did it come from? Did it come out of the ocean? Result of the Fukushima from 2011? Nobody had a clue. Some believed in an alien attack, to which NASA denied these rumours on Twitter.

Now, for most Europeans, the conflict in Japan was as distant problem as starving children in third world countries or the war in the Middle East.

It was not just about the inhabitants of Tokyo or even the whole of Japan. As a last resort, the island of Honshu could be completely annihilated by attacks from the Allied Forces. However, faced with the impending spectre of the WWIII, the rest of the world was ready for any sacrifices. The truth was that the Rc factor was worth more than the lives of 127 million Japanese. The loss of Japan, the main exporter of the highest quality RC products, would cause the collapse of the global economy. The entire pharmacological and biotechnology industry (as well as the military, which was not officially mentioned) relied mainly on this biological material. No method of RC cell culture has been discovered in laboratory conditions, not even mentioned artificial synthesis on an industrial scale.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph attached to the article. The vast majority of available photos looked like stills from cheap sci-fi movies with a ridiculously low CGI budget. Although articles from BBC News had hit bottom of the North Sea, at least they published photos by Hori Chie - a young photographer from Japan that the whole world talked about. Her works revealed the real tragedy that took place in Tokyo.

Raymond was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice the waitress who stood right in front of him. He quickly snapped out of it and turned his attention to her.

With thoughtful eyes, he looked at the young girl, most likely a student. Should he order another coffee? He could still feel the bitter taste of coffee on his tongue, though he added three sachets of white sugar to his cappuccino. All he wanted was a decent cup of tea. So why had he ordered coffee, even though he hated it so much?

”Would you like to order something to drink?”

”No, thanks. Check, please.”

He yawned and his eyes watered, then looked at the passers-by with boredom.

Five thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight miles - that was the distance between London and Tokyo. There was not a day that he didn’t think about this. The city where live the largest ghoul population in the world. And we are talking about true carnivores, not descendants of European ghouls, who had genetic mutations - practically no different from the many food intolerances common to a large proportion of Europeans. These real ghouls that would be hard to find on the streets of London were Raymond’s real obsession. The final form of predator, at the time, standing at the top of the food chain.

With his fingertips of the index and middle finger, he tried to massage his forehead between the eyebrows. ‘Maybe you should stop thinking about it and focus on your own affairs.’

At one point, Raymond’s attention was caught by a man with grey-blue hair. He blinked several times. Ridiculously handsome.

_‘_ He looks like a model!’

Raymond leaned forward, almost lying on the table, only to better look at the man. The stranger never once turned to the cafe windows, focused on talking to a child.

Raymond adjusted his glasses and swallowed slowly.

_‘Interesting.’_

He pulled out his phone to take a picture of the man. With a little help from the Internet, he could easily find him. As ill-luck would have it, the camera phone was all dirty from coffee. Raymond only managed to take two photos - out of focus, from which nothing could be seen. A hiss came from his lips

_‘What chance do you have to meet the person whose name is completely unknown to you? In London... Too small!’_

He jumped up from the chair and ran out into the street. A sudden gust of cold air hit him in the face. Ignoring mid-March cold weather, he _starting to look around nervously for the handsome stranger._

Raymond looked around the nearby streets, walking through Tower Street and Tower Ct, and passing The Mousetrap. He wandered for a good fifteen minutes, but eventually, he couldn’t find two strangers.

‘They could enter one of the buildings, or simply take a taxi.’ he bit his lip angrily. ‘Damn!’

When he calmed down a bit, Raymond realised that he had run out of the cafe practically without anything. His coat with a scarf, smartphone, home keys, and wallet with documents - he left all stuff in pursuit of the most handsome guy he had ever seen (though he had already met Tom Hiddleston before).

_‘Goddamn!’_

Raymond stopped in the middle of the pavement, ignoring stares of passers-by. And some might even recognize him. It didn't matter, anyway.

He adjusted his glasses.

Meanwhile, in TY Seven Dials his dead notebook and the unpaid bill was waiting for him.


End file.
